The Meaning of Blue and Yellow

Blue and yellow were my school colors in middle and high school. It was a combination that I hated for so long. Even while I loved the color blue, and was at least neutral towards the color yellow, I thought there couldn’t have been a worse combination than to put the two of them together. I spent years, half a life time, wondering why they were such a common combination when they looked so horrible together.

Ten years later, I’ve learned a lot about the world around and beyond me. But it was just in the few days after Putin’s army invaded Ukraine that I came to realizations about myself that made me realize just how much I’ve grown since leaving school.

I dropped out of school. Twice. The first time, in middle school, was to try home schooling for a few years. It went well, but eventually it was decided that I should return to public school, to a normal social scene. After only a year, I dropped out of school again, this time permanently. When you hear people tell about their lack of a high school degree, more often than not they’ll call it a failure, they’ll say they regret it and that they wish they had finished, or that they could go back and finish. None of these are true in my case. I walked out of that school after returning my textbooks with zero regrets, and without ever looking back. Today, I am proud of my decision to go against the norm, to break the rules, to stray off the path set for me, to defy everyone around me. Since I was still high school age, people would spend the next year or two asking me how school was going or when I was starting back up. I would tell them, proudly and with a smile, “I actually dropped out of school.”

For almost ten years, I never thought about the combination of blue and yellow, or any other part of my school life, again. Even when I’d see something else that was blue and yellow, it never even occurred to me that those were my school colors. I still just thought they were an ugly combination. Until Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

The only thing I knew about Ukraine before that day was its name, and that it was somewhere in Europe. When I did start learning about it, it wasn’t about their national bird or traditions at first. It was about their people. About Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the former comedian who turned into a brave leader, determined to lead his people from their side, instead of fleeing the country even when safety and safe exit was offered. I learned about the courageous men of Ukraine, who volunteered to stay, who wanted to protect their home, even when they didn’t have any military training or background. I learned about the women who fled so that their children would be safe, despite the part of them that wanted to stay and fight.

Then, finally, as artists all over the world started posting art to raise Ukraine’s voice and provide what support they could, I started to learn more about the country itself. I almost laughed when I saw that the Ukraine national colors was the combination I’d thought was so ugly for so long. It seemed so backwards, that the combination was owned, in my mind, by such a horrible situation and place for so long. Now I could see that blue and truly belongs to Ukraine. Suddenly I realized that blue and yellow were a beautiful combination that represent freedom, courage, and daring to dream of peace. I realized that it was never the combination that I hated. I had just let my traumatizing experience of school taint the colors for me.